Up to 70 firms with PFI contracts for the NHS are based offshore, a report by the European Services Strategy Unit reveals.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports:

A report by the European Services Strategy Unit, and covered in the Sunday Times, reveals that as many as 70 NHS PFI projects are based off-shore.

Established under John Major’s Conservative government in the early 1990s before being massively expanded under Blair, PFI committed dozens of NHS trusts to contracts that soon became absurdly expensive and unsustainable. A 2007 NHS report found that fixed running costs (cleaning, maintenance etc.) at PFI-funded hospitals were often twice as high as the equivalent services at hospitals not locked in to long term contracts with private firms.

Earlier this year, the Guardian calculated that paying off current PFI contracts would ultimately cost Britain £300bn. Hospital buildings account for £70bn of this figure.

We've collected a few reactions from across the sector on Jeremy Hunt's appointment as health secretary via storify which you can read online here.

An interview in the Independent with Jeremy Hunt two years ago is also worth taking a look at for those interested in the new appointment. In in, he explains his "juggling act" as he "tries to keep the Olympics on budget while looking for huge cuts elsewhere".

Unite says the departure of Andrew Lansley creates an opportunity for a re-think on the future of the NHS.

In a statement Rachael Maskell, the union's head of health, said:

Jeremy Hunt as the new health secretary has a real opportunity to ride the public mood and ensure the NHS remains a universal service, free at the point of delivery to all those in need.

The NHS has been pushed to the brink of destruction by Andrew Lansley - a minister who simply would not listen either to the patients or the professionals. Jeremy Hunt must reflect deep and hard on the errors of his predecessor and seek immediate dialogue with the NHS team and their unions. He has the power to slam the door on the increasing privatisation of the NHS.

Andrew Lansley must rank as one of the worst health secretaries since the NHS was formed in 1948. He presided over deeply, unpopular bungled reforms which heralded rising waiting lists; £20 billion cuts to services; job losses to thousands of nurses and other health workers; installed an expensive, needless bureaucracy; and announced an open sesame to the private firms which put profit before patient care.

In challenging times for the health service, the RCN has not seen eye to eye with Andrew Lansley on the government’s health reforms. However, we have welcomed the continuous dialogue between Mr Lansley and RCN members during his time as health spokesman and as secretary of state.

The RCN will now be looking to work with incoming secretary of state Jeremy Hunt, to ensure that the nursing voice is heard. There are profound challenges facing health in the UK, such as the need to save £20 billion from across the NHS in England, staff being asked to do more with less, waiting lists lengthening and waiting times rising, threats to public health, the delivery of social care to an aging population, and the demands of shifting care from hospitals into the community and an unnecessary shift to regional pay. We wish Mr Hunt well as he faces these considerable challenges and wish to meet with him soon to set out the concerns of the nursing profession.

He is taking on a critical brief at a critical time. On behalf of our members, I look forward to working closely with him to address the challenges facing our health service. Top of Mr Hunt's in-tray will be making sure the NHS is financially sustainable for the future and fit to respond to the needs of our changing population. The NHS reforms are important, but we must keep our eye on the long term issues the NHS is facing - an ageing population, and growing rates of obesity. Driving change in these areas will be the big test of the success of this government.

He added:

We would like to thank Andrew Lansley for his commitment to the NHS over the past eight and a half years, both in opposition and as health secretary. He has held his brief in health for almost a decade and that is something that not many other politicians can say they have done

The new secretary of state can be in no doubt that he has a tough job. Implementing reforms is always risky, and even more so against a backdrop of severe financial challenges, budget cuts and ever increasing demand for services. Foundation trusts are the stable part of the NHS. They carry much of the burden of this risk and need to be able to use their autonomy and direct accountability to patients and the public to make the necessary changes in how they deliver services locally. Andrew Lansley was a firm supporter of the foundation trust model of healthcare. FTN’s members look forward to that on-going support from the new secretary of state.

On the network this morning, Dennis Baldwin of the Lesbian & Gay Foundation asks how GPs can meet the needs of lesbian, gay and bisexual patients. He writes:Lesbian, gay and bisexual people face considerable health inequalities and are disproportionately likely to suffer from poor sexual, mental and physical health, as well as increased levels of substance misuse. Yet the lack of sexual orientation monitoring by health services means there remains a distinct lack of information relating to the health and social care needs of LGB patients.

This lack of monitoring, means it's impossible to determine the extent of inequality of outcomes, and so there is little attention given to the specific needs of the LGB community.

Baldwin explains how the foundation has put together a benchmarking tool that identifies surgeries that are fully committed to assuring LGB patients are treated fairly and able to discuss issues openly with their GP.

It’s hard to overstate how much excitement reshuffles generate amongst the Westminster press corps. That’s not necessarily because of their impact - often they have very little effect on the overall performance of a government - but because, for journalists routinely criticised for treating politics as a soap opera, reshuffle day is the one occasion when it really does become a personality-driven drama.